The study of the topic “The Church and the
Faults of the Past” was proposed to the International
Theological Commission by its President, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger,
in view of the celebration of the Jubilee Year 2000. A
sub-commission was established to prepare this study; it was
composed of Rev. Christopher Begg, Msgr. Bruno Fort (President),
Rev. Sebastian Karotempre, S.D.B., Msgr. Roland Minnerath, Rev.
Thomas Norris, Rev. Rafael Salazar Cardena, M.Sp.S., and Msgr.
Anton Strukelj. The general discussion of this theme took place in
numerous meetings of the sub-commission and during the plenary
sessions of the International Theological Commission held in Rome
from 1998 to 1999. By written vote, the present text was approved
in forma specifica by the Commission, and was then
submitted to the President, Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who gave his approval
for its publication.

The Bull of Indiction of the Great Jubilee of the
Year 2000, Incarnationis mysterium (November 29, 1998),
includes the purification of memory among the signs “which may
help people to live the exceptional grace of the Jubilee with
greater fervor.” This purification aims at liberating personal
and communal conscience from all forms of resentment and violence
that are the legacy of past faults, through a renewed historical
and theological evaluation of such events. This should lead—if
done correctly—to a corresponding recognition of guilt and
contribute to the path of reconciliation. Such a process can have
a significant effect on the present, precisely because the
consequences of past faults still make themselves felt and can
persist as tensions in the present.

The purification of memory is thus “an act of
courage and humility in recognizing the wrongs done by those who
have borne or bear the name of Christian.” It is based on the
conviction that because of “the bond which unites us to one
another in the Mystical Body, all of us, though not personally
responsible and without encroaching on the judgement of God, who
alone knows every heart, bear the burden of the errors and faults
of those who have gone before us.” John Paul II adds: “As the
successor of Peter, I ask that in this year of mercy the Church,
strong in the holiness which she receives from her Lord, should
kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present
sins of her sons and daughters.”(1) In reiterating that
“Christians are invited to acknowledge, before God and before
those offended by their actions, the faults which they have
committed,” the Pope concludes, “Let them do so without
seeking anything in return, but strengthened only by ‘the love
of God which has been poured into our hearts’ (Rom
5:5).”(2)

The requests for forgiveness made by the Bishop of
Rome in this spirit of authenticity and gratuitousness have given
rise to various reactions. The unconditional trust in the power of
Truth which the Pope has shown has met with a generally favorable
reception both inside and outside the Church. Many have noted the
increased credibility of ecclesial pronouncements that has
resulted from this way of acting. Some reservations, however, have
also been voiced, mainly expressions of unease connected with
particular historical and cultural contexts in which the simple
admission of faults committed by the sons and daughters of the
Church may look like acquiescence in the face of accusations made
by those who are prejudicially hostile to the Church. Between
agreement and unease, the need arises for a reflection which
clarifies the reasons, the conditions, and the exact form of the
requests for forgiveness for the faults of the past.

The International Theological Commission, in which
a diversity of cultures and sensitivities within the one Catholic
faith are represented, decided to address this need with the
present text. The text offers a theological reflection on the
conditions which make acts of “purification of memory”
possible in connection with the recognition of the faults of the
past. The questions it seeks to address are as follows: Why should
it be done? Who should do it? What is the goal and how should this
be determined, by correctly combining historical and theological
judgement? Who will be addressed? What are the moral implications?
And what are the possible effects on the life of the Church and on
society? The purpose of the text is, therefore, not to examine
particular historical cases but rather to clarify the
presuppositions that ground repentance for past faults.

Having noted the kind of reflection which will be
presented here, it is important also to make clear what is
referred to when the text speaks of the Church: it is not a
question of the historical institution alone or solely the
spiritual communion of those whose hearts are illumined by faith.
The Church is understood as the community of the baptized,
inseparably visible and operating in history under the direction
of her Pastors, united as a profound mystery by the action of the
life-giving Spirit. According to the Second Vatican Council, the
Church “by a strong analogy is compared to the mystery of the
Incarnate Word. In fact, as the assumed nature is at the service
of the divine Word as a living instrument of salvation,
indissolubly united to him, so also in a not dissimilar way, the
social structure of the Church is at the service of the Spirit of
Christ which vivifies it for the building up of the body” (cf. Eph
4:16).(3) This Church, which embraces her sons and daughters of
the past and of the present, in a real and profound communion, is
the sole Mother of Grace who takes upon herself also the weight of
past faults in order to purify memory and to live the renewal of
heart and life according to the will of the Lord. She is able to
do this insofar as Christ Jesus, whose mystical body extended
through history she is, has taken upon himself once and for all
the sins of the world.

The structure of the text mirrors the questions
posed. It moves from a brief historical revisiting of the theme
(Chapter 1), in order to be able to investigate the biblical
foundation (Chapter 2) and explore more deeply the theological
conditions of the requests for forgiveness (Chapter 3). The
precise correlation of historical and theological judgement is a
decisive element for reaching correct and efficacious statements
that take proper account of the times, places, and contexts in
which the actions under consideration were situated (Chapter 4).
The final considerations, that have a specific value for the
Catholic Church, are dedicated to the moral (Chapter 5), pastoral
and missionary (Chapter 6) implications of these acts of
repentance for the faults of the past. Nevertheless, in the
knowledge that the necessity of recognizing one’s own faults has
reason to be practiced by all peoples and religions, one hopes
that the proposed reflections may help everyone to advance on the
path of truth, fraternal dialogue, and reconciliation.

At the conclusion of this introduction, it may be
useful to recall the purpose of every act of “purification of
memory” undertaken by believers, because this is what has
inspired the work of the Commission: it is the glorification of
God, because living in obedience to Divine Truth and its demands
leads to confessing, together with our faults, the eternal mercy
and justice of the Lord. The “confessio peccati,”
sustained and illuminated by faith in the Truth which frees and
saves (“confessio fidei”), becomes a “confessio
laudis” addressed to God, before whom alone it becomes
possible to recognize the faults both of the past and of the
present, so that we might be reconciled by and to him in Christ
Jesus, the only Savior of the world, and become able to forgive
those who have offended us. This offer of forgiveness appears
particularly meaningful when one thinks of the many persecutions
suffered by Christians in the course of history. In this
perspective, the actions undertaken by the Holy Father, and those
requested by him, regarding the faults of the past have an
exemplary and prophetic value, for religions as much as for
governments and nations, beyond being of value for the Catholic
Church, which is thus helped to live in a more efficacious way the
Great Jubilee of the Incarnation as an event of grace and
reconciliation for everyone.

The Jubilee has always been lived in the Church as
a time of joy for the salvation given in Christ and as a
privileged occasion for penance and reconciliation for the sins
present in the lives of the People of God. From its first
celebration under Boniface VIII in 1300, the penitential
pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul was
associated with the granting of an exceptional indulgence for
procuring, with sacramental pardon, total or partial remission of
the temporal punishment due to sin.(4) In this context, both
sacramental forgiveness and the remission of temporal punishment
have a personal character. In the course of the “year of pardon
and grace,”(5) the Church dispenses in a particular way the
treasury of grace that Christ has constituted for her benefit.(6)
In none of the Jubilees celebrated till now has there been,
however, an awareness in conscience of any faults in the
Church’s past, nor of the need to ask God’s pardon for conduct
in the recent or remote past.

Indeed, in the entire history of the Church there
are no precedents for requests for forgiveness by the Magisterium
for past wrongs. Councils and papal decrees applied sanctions, to
be sure, to abuses of which clerics and laymen were found guilty,
and many pastors sincerely strove to correct them. However, the
occasions when ecclesiastical authorities—Pope, Bishops, or
Councils—have openly acknowledged the faults or abuses which
they themselves were guilty of, have been quite rare. One famous
example is furnished by the reforming Pope Adrian VI who
acknowledged publicly in a message to the Diet of Nuremberg of
November 25, 1522, “the abominations, the abuses...and the
lies” of which the “Roman court” of his time was guilty,
“deep-rooted and extensive…sickness,” extending “from the
top to the members.”(7) Adrian VI deplored the faults of his
times, precisely those of his immediate predecessor Leo X and his
curia, without, however, adding a request for pardon. It will be
necessary to wait until Paul VI to find a Pope express a request
for pardon addressed as much to God as to a group of
contemporaries. In his address at the opening of the second
session of the Second Vatican Council, the Pope asked “pardon of
God…and of the separated brethren” of the East who may have
felt offended “by us” (the Catholic Church), and declared
himself ready for his part to pardon offences received. In the
view of Paul VI, both the request for and offer of pardon
concerned solely the sin of the division between Christians and
presupposed reciprocity.

Vatican II takes the same approach as Paul VI. For
the faults committed against unity, the Council Fathers state,
“we ask pardon of God and of the separated brethren, as we
forgive those who trespass against us.”(8) In addition to faults
against unity, it noted other negative episodes from the past for
which Christians bore some responsibility. Thus, “it deplores
certain attitudes that sometimes are found among Christians” and
which led people to think that faith and science are mutually
opposed.(9) Likewise, it considers the fact that in “the genesis
of atheism,” Christians may have had “some responsibility”
insofar as through their negligence they “conceal rather than
reveal the authentic face of God and religion.”(10) In addition,
the Council “deplores” the persecutions and manifestations of
anti-Semitism “in every time and on whoever’s part.”(11) The
Council, nevertheless, does not add a request for pardon for the
things cited.

From a theological point of view, Vatican II
distinguishes between the indefectible fidelity of the Church and
the weaknesses of her members, clergy or laity, yesterday and
today,(12) and therefore, between the Bride of Christ “with
neither blemish nor wrinkle...holy and immaculate” (cf. Eph
5:27), and her children, pardoned sinners, called to permanent metanoia,
to renewal in the Holy Spirit. “The Church, embracing sinners in
her bosom, is at the same time holy and always in need of
purification and incessantly pursues the path of penance and
renewal.”(13)

The Council also elaborated some criteria of
discernment regarding the guilt or responsibility of persons now
living for faults of the past. In effect, the Council recalled in
two different contexts the non-imputability to those now living of
past faults committed by members of their religious communities:

“What was committed during the passion (of
Christ) cannot be imputed either indiscriminately to all Jews
then living nor to the Jews of our time.”(14)

“Large communities became separated from
full communion with the Catholic Church – at times not
without the fault of men on both sides. However, one cannot
charge with the sin of separation those who now are born into
these communities and who in these are instructed in the faith
of Christ, and the Catholic Church embraces them with
fraternal respect and love.”(15)

When the first Holy Year was celebrated after the
Council, in 1975, Paul VI gave it the theme of “renewal and
reconciliation,”(16) making clear in the Apostolic Exhortation Paterna
cum benevolentia that reconciliation should take place first
of all among the faithful of the Catholic Church.(17) As in its
origin, the Holy Year remained an occasion for conversion and
reconciliation of sinners to God by means of the sacramental
economy of the Church.

Not only did John Paul II renew expressions of
regret for the “sorrowful memories” that mark the history of
the divisions among Christians, as Paul VI and the Second Vatican
Council had done,(18) but he also extended a request for
forgiveness to a multitude of historical events in which the
Church, or individual groups of Christians, were implicated in
different respects.(19) In the Apostolic Letter Tertio
millennioadveniente,(20) the Pope expresses the hope
that the Jubilee of 2000 might be the occasion for a purification
of the memory of the Church from all forms of “counter-witness
and scandal” which have occurred in the course of the past
millennium.(21)

The Church is invited to “become more fully
conscious of the sinfulness of her children.” She
“acknowledges as her own her sinful sons and daughters” and
encourages them “to purify themselves, through repentance, of
past errors and instances of infidelity, inconsistency and
slowness to act.”(22) The responsibility of Christians for the
evils of our time is likewise noted,(23) although the accent falls
particularly on the solidarity of the Church of today with past
faults. Some of these are explicitly mentioned, like the
separation of Christians,(24) or the “methods of violence and
intolerance” used in the past to evangelize.(25)

John Paul II also promoted the deeper theological
exploration of the idea of taking responsibility for the wrongs of
the past and of possibly asking forgiveness from one’s
contemporaries,(26) when in the Exhortation Reconciliatio etpaenitentia, he states that in the sacrament of Penance
“the sinner stands alone before God with his sin, repentance,
and trust. No one can repent in his place or ask forgiveness in
his name.” Sin is therefore always personal, even though it
wounds the entire Church, which, represented by the priest as
minister of Penance, is the sacramental mediatrix of the grace
which reconciles with God.(27) Also the situations of “social
sin” - which are evident in the human community when justice,
freedom, and peace are damaged – are always “the result of the
accumulation and concentration of many personal sins.” While
moral responsibility may become diluted in anonymous causes, one
can only speak of social sin by way of analogy.(28) It emerges
from this that the imputability of a fault cannot properly be
extended beyond the group of persons who had consented to it
voluntarily, by means of acts or omissions, or through negligence.

The Church is a living society spanning the
centuries. Her memory is not constituted only by the tradition
which goes back to the Apostles and is normative for her faith and
life, but she is also rich in the variety of historical
experiences, positive and negative, which she has lived. In large
part, the Church’s past structures her present. The doctrinal,
liturgical, canonical, and ascetical tradition nourishes the life
of the believing community, offering it an incomparable sampling
of models to imitate. Along the entire earthly pilgrimage,
however, the good grain always remains inextricably mixed with the
chaff; holiness stands side by side with infidelity and sin.(29)
And it is thus that the remembrance of scandals of the past can
become an obstacle to the Church’s witness today, and the
recognition of the past faults of the Church’s sons and
daughters of yesterday can foster renewal and reconciliation in
the present.

The difficulty that emerges is that of defining
past faults, above all, because of the historical judgement which
this requires. In events of the past, one must always distinguish
the responsibility or fault that can be attributed to members of
the Church as believers from that which should be referred to
society during the centuries of ‘Christendom’ or to power
structures in which the temporal and spiritual were closely
intertwined. An historical hermeneutic is therefore more necessary
than ever in order to distinguish correctly between the action of
the Church as community of faith and that of society in the times
when an osmosis existed between them.

The steps taken by John Paul II to ask pardon for
faults of the past have been understood in many circles as signs
of the Church’s vitality and authenticity, such that they
strengthen her credibility. It is right, moreover, that the Church
contribute to changing false and unacceptable images of herself,
especially in those areas in which, whether through ignorance or
bad faith, some sectors of opinion like to identify her with
obscurantism and intolerance. The requests for pardon formulated
by the Pope have also given rise to positive emulation both inside
and outside the Church. Heads of state or government, private and
public associations, religious communities are today asking
forgiveness for episodes or historical periods marked by
injustices. This practice is far from just an exercise in
rhetoric, and for this reason, some hesitate to do so, calculating
the attendant costs – among which are those on the legal plane -
of an acknowledgement of past wrongs. Also from this point of
view, a rigorous discernment is necessary.

Nevertheless, some of the faithful are
disconcerted and their loyalty to the Church seems shaken. Some
wonder how they can hand on a love for the Church to younger
generations if this same Church is imputed with crimes and faults.
Others observe that the recognition of faults is for the most part
one-sided and is exploited by the Church’s detractors, who are
satisfied to see the Church confirm the prejudices they had of
her. Still others warn against arbitrarily making current
generations of believers feel guilty for shortcomings they did not
consent to in any way, even though they declare themselves ready
to take responsibility to the extent that some groups of people
still feel themselves affected today by the consequences of
injustices suffered by their forbears in previous times. Others
hold that the Church could purify her memory with respect to
ambiguous actions in which she was involved in the past simply by
taking part in the critical work on memory developed in our
society. Thus she could affirm that she joins with her
contemporaries in rejecting what the moral conscience of our time
reproaches, though without putting herself forward as the only
guilty party responsible for the evils of the past, by seeking at
the same time a dialogue in mutual understanding with those who
may feel themselves still wounded by past acts imputable to the
children of the Church. Finally, it is to be expected that certain
groups might demand that forgiveness be sought in their regard,
either by analogy with other groups, or because they believe that
they have suffered wrongs. In any case, the purification of memory
can never mean that the Church ceases to proclaim the revealed
truth that has been entrusted to her whether in the area of faith
or of morals.

Thus, a number of questions can be identified: Can
today’s conscience be assigned ‘guilt’ for isolated
historical phenomena like the Crusades or the Inquisition? Isn’t
it a bit too easy to judge people of the past by the conscience of
today (as the Scribes and Pharisees do according to Mt
23:29-32), almost as if moral conscience were not situated in
time? And, on the other hand, can it be denied that ethical
judgement is always possible, given the simple fact that the truth
of God and its moral requirements always have value? Whatever
attitude is adopted must come to terms with these questions and
seek answers that are based in revelation and in its living
transmission in the faith of the Church. The first question is
therefore that of clarifying the extent to which requests for
forgiveness for past wrongs, especially if addressed to groups of
people today, are within the biblical and theological horizon of
reconciliation with God and neighbor.

The investigation of Israel’s acknowledgement of
faults in the Old Testament and the topic of the confession of
faults as found in the traditions of the New Testament can
developed in various ways.(30) The theological nature of the
reflection undertaken here leads us to favor a largely thematic
approach, centering on the following question: What background
does the testimony of Sacred Scripture furnish for John Paul
II’s invitation to the Church to confess the faults of the past?

Confessions of sins and corresponding requests for
forgiveness can be found throughout the Bible – in the
narratives of the Old Testament, in the Psalms, and in the
Prophets, as well as in the Gospels of the New Testament. There
are also sporadic references in the Wisdom Literature and in the
Letters of the New Testament. Given the abundance and diffusion of
these testimonies, the question of how to select and catalogue the
mass of significant texts arises. One may inquire here about the
biblical texts related to the confession of sins: Who is
confessing what (and what kind of fault) to whom? Put in this way,
the question helps distinguish two principal categories of
“confession texts,” each of which embraces different
sub-categories, viz., a) confession texts of individual sins, and
b) confession texts of sins of the entire people (and of those of
their forebears). In relation to the recent ecclesial practice
that motivates this study, we will restrict our analysis to the
second category.

In this second category, different expressions can
be found, depending on who is making the confession of the sins of
the people and on who is, or is not, associated with the shared
guilt, prescinding from the presence or absence of an awareness of
personal responsibility (which has only matured progressively: cf.
Ez 14:12-23; 18:1-32; 33:10-20). On the basis of these
criteria, the following rather fluid cases can be distinguished:

A first series of texts represents the entire
people (sometimes personified as a single “I”) who, in a
particular moment of its history, confesses or alludes to its
sins against God without any (explicit) reference to the
faults of the preceding generations.(31)

Another group of texts places the confession -
directed to God - of the current sins of the people on the
lips of one or more leaders (religious), who may or may not
include themselves explicitly among the sinful people for whom
they are praying.(32)

A third group of texts presents the people or
one of their leaders in the act of mentioning the sins of
their forebears without, however, making mention of those of
the present generation.(33)

More frequent are the confessions that mention
the faults of the forebears, linking them expressly to the
errors of the present generation.(34)

We can conclude from the testimonies gathered that
in all cases where the “sins of the fathers” are mentioned,
the confession is addressed solely to God, and the sins confessed
by the people and for the people are those committed directly
against him rather than those committed (also) against other human
beings (only in Nm 21:7 is mention made of a human party
harmed, Moses).(35) The question arises as to why the biblical
writers did not feel the need to address requests for forgiveness
to present interlocutors for the sins committed by their fathers,
given their strong sense of solidarity in good and evil among the
generations (one thinks of the notion of “corporate
personality”). We can propose various hypotheses in response to
this question. First, there is the prevalent theocentrism of the
Bible, which gives precedence to the acknowledgement, whether
individual or national, of the faults committed against God. What
is more, acts of violence perpetrated by Israel against other
peoples, which would seem to require a request for forgiveness
from those peoples or from their descendants, are understood to be
the execution of divine directives, as for example Gn 2-11
and Dt 7:2 (the extermination of the Canaanites), or 1 Sm
15 and Dt 25:19 (the destruction of the Amalekites). In
such cases, the involvement of a divine command would seem to
exclude any possible request for forgiveness.(36) The experiences
of maltreatment suffered by Israel at the hands of other peoples
and the animosity thus aroused could also have militated against
the idea of asking pardon of these peoples for the evil done to
them.(37)

In any case the sense of intergenerational
solidarity in sin (and in grace) remains relevant in the biblical
testimony and is expressed in the confession before God of the
“sins of the fathers,” such that John Paul II could state,
citing the splendid prayer of Azaria: “‘Blessed are you, O
Lord, the God of our fathers... For we have sinned and
transgressed by departing from you, and we have done every kind of
evil. Your commandments we have not heeded or observed’ (Dn
3:26,29-30). This is how the Jews prayed after the exile (cf. also
Bar 2:11-13), accepting the responsibility for the sins
committed by their fathers. The Church imitates their example and
also asks forgiveness for the historical sins of her
children.”(38)

A fundamental theme connected with the idea of
guilt, and amply present in the New Testament, is that of the
absolute holiness of God. The God of Jesus is the God of Israel
(cf. Jn 4:22), invoked as “Holy Father” (Jn
17:11), and called “the Holy One” in 1 Jn 2:20 (cf. Acts
6:10). The triple proclamation of God as “holy” in Is 6:3
returns in Acts 4:8, while 1 Pt 1:16 insists on the fact
that Christians must be holy “for it is written: ‘You shall be
holy, for I am holy’” (cf. Lv 11:44-45; 19:2). All this
reflects the Old Testament notion of the absolute holiness of God;
however, for Christian faith the divine holiness has entered
history in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The Old Testament
notion has not been abandoned but developed, in the sense that the
holiness of God becomes present in the holiness of the incarnate
Son (cf. Mk 1:24; Lk 1:35; 4:34; Jn 6:69; Acts
3:14; 4:27,30; Rev 3:7), and the holiness of the Son is
shared by “his own” (cf. Jn 17:16-19), who are made sons in
the Son (cf. Gal 4:4-6; Rom 8:14-17). There can be
no aspiration to divine sonship in Jesus unless there is love for
one’s neighbor (cf. Mk 12:29-31: Mt 22:37-38; Lk
10:27-28).

Love of neighbor, absolutely central in the
teaching of Jesus, becomes the “new commandment” in the Gospel
of John; the disciples should love as he has loved (cf. Jn
13:34-35; 15:12,17), that is, perfectly, “to the end” (Jn
13:1). The Christian is called to love and to forgive to a degree
that transcends every human standard of justice and produces a
reciprocity between human beings, reflective of the reciprocity
between Christ and the Father (cf. Jn 13:34f; 15:1-11;
17:21-26). In this perspective, great emphasis is given to the
theme of reconciliation and forgiveness of faults. Jesus asks his
disciples to be always ready to forgive all those who have
offended them, just as God himself always offers his forgiveness:
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us” (Mt 6:12; 6:12-15). He who is able to forgive
his neighbor shows that he has understood his own need for
forgiveness by God. The disciple is invited to forgive the one who
offends him “seventy times seven,” even if the person may not
ask for forgiveness (cf. Mt 18:21-22).

With regard to someone who has been injured by
another, Jesus insists that the injured person should take the
first step, canceling the offense through forgiveness offered
“from the heart” (cf. Mt 18:35; Mk 11:25), aware
that he too is a sinner before God, who never refuses forgiveness
sincerely entreated. In Mt 5:23-24, Jesus asks the offender
to “go and reconcile himself with his brother who has something
against him” before presenting his offering at the altar. An act
of worship on the part of one who has no desire beforehand to
repair the damage to his neighbor is not pleasing to God. What
matters is changing one’s own heart and showing in an
appropriate way that one really wants reconciliation. The sinner,
however, aware that his sins wound his relationship with God and
with his neighbor (cf. Lk 15:21), can expect pardon only
from God, because only God is always merciful and ready to cancel
our sins. This is also the significance of the sacrifice of Christ
who, once and for all, has purified us of our sins (cf. Heb
9:22; 10:18). Thus, the offender and the offended are reconciled
by God who receives and forgives everyone in his mercy.

In this context, which could be expanded through
an analysis of the Letters of Paul and the Catholic Epistles,
there is no indication that the early Church turned her attention
to sins of the past in order to ask for forgiveness. This might be
explained by the powerful sense of the radical newness of
Christianity, which tended to orient the community toward the
future rather than the past. There is, however, a more broad and
subtle insistence pervading the New Testament: in the Gospels and
in the Letters, the ambivalence of the Christian experience is
fully recognized. For Paul, for example, the Christian community
is an eschatological people that already lives the “new
creation” (cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15), but this
experience, made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus
(cf. Rom 3:21-26; 5:6-11; 8:1-11; 1 Cor 15:54-57),
does not free us from the inclination to sin present in the world
because of Adam’s fall. From the divine intervention in and
through the death and resurrection of Jesus, it follows that there
are now two scenarios possible: the history of Adam and the
history of Christ. These proceed side by side and the believer
must count on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus (cf.,
for example, Rom 6:1-11; Gal 3:27-28; Col
3:10; 2 Cor 5:14- 15) to be part of the history in which
“grace overflows” (cf. Rom 5:12-21).

A similar theological re-reading of the paschal
event of Christ shows how the early Church had an acute awareness
of the possible deficiencies of the baptized. One could say that
the entire “corpus paulinum” recalls believers to a
full recognition of their dignity, albeit in the living awareness
of the fragility of their human condition. “For freedom Christ
set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of
slavery” (Gal 5:1). An analogous reason can be found in
the Gospel narratives. It arises decisively in Mark where the
frailties of Jesus’ disciples are one of the dominant themes of
the account (cf. Mk 4:40-41; 6:36-37, 51-52; 8:14-21,31-33;
9:5-6,32-41; 10:32-45; 14:10-11, 17- 21, 27-31,50; 16:8). Even if
understandably nuanced, the same motif recurs in all of the
Evangelists. Judas and Peter are respectively the traitor and the
one who denies the Master, though Judas ends up in desperation for
his act (cf. Acts 1:15-20), while Peter repents (cf. Lk
22:61) and arrives at a triple profession of love (cf. in Jn
21:15-19). In Matthew, even during the final appearance of the
risen Lord, while the disciples adore him, “some still
doubted” (Mt 28:17). The Fourth Gospel presents the
disciples as those to whom an incommensurable love was given even
though their response was one of ignorance, deficiencies, denial,
and betrayal (cf. Jn 13:1-38).

This constant presentation of Jesus’ disciples,
who vacillate when it comes to yielding to sin, is not simply a
critical re-reading of the early history. The accounts are framed
in such a way that they are addressed to every other disciple of
Christ in difficulty who looks to the Gospel for guidance and
inspiration. Moreover, the New Testament is full of exhortations
to behave well, to live at a higher level of dedication, to avoid
evil (cf., for example, Jas 1:5-8, 19-21; 2:1-7; 4:1-10; 1 Pt
1:13-25; 2 Pt 2:1-22; Jude 3:13; 1 Jn 5-10;
2:1-11; 18-27; 4:1-6; 2 Jn 7-11; 3 Jn 9-10). There
is, however, no explicit call addressed to the first Christians to
confess the faults of the past, although the recognition of the
reality of sin and evil within the Christian people – those
called to the eschatological life proper to the Christian
condition – is highly significant (it is enough to note the
reproaches in the letters to the seven Churches in the Book of
Revelation). According to the petition found in the Lord’s
Prayer, this people prays: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive those who trespass against us” (Lk 11:4; cf. Mt
6:12). Thus, the first Christians show that they are well aware
that they could act in a way that does not correspond to their
vocation, by not living their Baptism into the death and
resurrection of Jesus.

An important biblical precedent for reconciliation
and overcoming of past situations is represented by the
celebration of the Jubilee, as it is regulated in the Book of
Leviticus (Ch. 25). In a social structure made up of
tribes, clans, and families, situations of disorder were
inevitably created when struggling individuals or families had to
“redeem” themselves from their difficulties by consigning
their land, house, servants, or children to those who had more
means than they had. Such a system resulted in some Israelites
coming to suffer intolerable situations of debt, poverty, and
servitude in the same land that had been given to them by God, to
the advantage of other children of Israel. All this could result
in a territory or a clan falling into the hands of a few rich
people for greater or lesser periods of time, while the rest of
the families of the clan came to find themselves in a condition of
debt or servitude, compelling them to live in total dependence
upon a few well-off persons.

The legislation of Leviticus 25 constitutes an
attempt to overturn this state of affairs (such that one could
doubt whether it was ever put into practice fully!). It convened
the celebration of the Jubilee every fifty years in order to
preserve the social fabric of the People of God and restore
independence even to the smallest families of the country.
Decisive for Leviticus 25 is the regular repetition of Israel’s
profession of faith in God who had liberated his people in the
Exodus. “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the
land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God”
(Lv 25:38; cf. vss 42,45). The celebration of the Jubilee
was an implicit admission of fault and an attempt to re-establish
a just order. Any system which would alienate an Israelite –
once a slave but now freed by the powerful arm of God – was in
fact a denial of God’s saving action in and through the Exodus.

The liberation of the victims and sufferers
becomes part of the much broader program of the prophets. Deutero-Isaiah,
in the Suffering Servant songs (Is 42:1-9; 49:1-6; 50:4-11;
52:13-53:12) develops these allusions to the practice of the
Jubilee with the themes of ransom and of freedom, of return and
redemption. Isaiah 58 is an attack on ritual observance that has
no regard for social justice; it is a call for liberation of the
oppressed (Is 58:6), centered specifically on the
obligations of kinship (v.7). More clearly, Isaiah 61 uses the
images of the Jubilee to depict the Anointed One as God’s herald
sent to “evangelize” the poor, to proclaim liberty to
captives, and to announce the year of grace of the Lord.
Significantly, it is precisely this text, with an allusion to
Isaiah 58:6, that Jesus uses to present the task of his life and
ministry in Luke 4:17-21.

From what has been said, it can be concluded that
John Paul II’s appeal to the Church to mark the Jubilee Year by
an admission of guilt for the sufferings and wrongs committed by
her sons and daughters in the past, as well as the ways in which
this might be put into practice, do not find an exact parallel in
the Bible. Nevertheless, they are based on what Sacred Scripture
says about the holiness of God, the intergenerational solidarity
of God’s people, and the sinfulness of the people. The Pope’s
appeal correctly captures the spirit of the biblical Jubilee,
which calls for actions aimed at re-establishing the order of
God’s original plan for creation. This requires that the
proclamation of the “today” of the Jubilee, begun by Jesus
(cf. Lk 4:21), be continued in the Jubilee celebration of
his Church. In addition, this singular experience of grace prompts
the People of God as a whole, as well as each of the baptized, to
take still greater cognizance of the mandate received from the
Lord to be ever ready to forgive offenses received.(39)

“Hence it is appropriate that as the second
millennium of Christianity draws to a close the Church should
become ever more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her
children, recalling all those times in history when they departed
from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering
to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of
faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms
of counter-witness and scandal. Although she is holy because
of her incorporation into Christ, the Church does not tire of
doing penance. Before God and man, she always acknowledges as
her own her sinful sons and daughters.”(40) These words of
John Paul II emphasize how the Church is touched by the sin of her
children. She is holy in being made so by the Father through the
sacrifice of the Son and the gift of the Spirit. She is also in a
certain sense sinner, in really taking upon herself the sin of
those whom she has generated in Baptism. This is analogous to the
way Christ Jesus took on the sin of the world (cf. Rom 8:3;
2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; 1 Pt 2:24).(41)
Furthermore, in her most profound self-awareness in time, the
Church knows that she is not only a community of the elect, but
one which in her very bosom includes both righteous and sinners,
of the present as well as the past, in the unity of the mystery
which constitutes her. Indeed, in grace and in the woundedness of
sin, the baptized of today are close to, and in solidarity with,
those of yesterday. For this reason one can say that the Church
– one in time and space in Christ and in the Spirit – is truly
“at the same time holy and ever in need of purification.”(42)
It is from this paradox, which is characteristic of the mystery of
the Church, that the question arises as to how one can reconcile
the two aspects: on the one hand, the Church’s affirmation in
faith of her holiness, and on the other hand, her unceasing need
for penance and purification.

“The Church is in history, but at the same time
she transcends it. It is only ‘with the eyes of faith’ that
one can see her in her visible reality and at the same time in her
spiritual reality as bearer of divine life.”(43) The ensemble of
her visible and historical aspects stands in relation to the
divine gift in a way that is analogous to how, in the incarnate
Word of God, the assumed humanity is sign and instrument of the
action of the divine Person of the Son. The two dimensions of
ecclesial being form “one complex reality resulting from a human
and a divine element,”(44) in a communion that participates in
the Trinitarian life and brings about baptized persons’ sense of
being united among themselves despite historical differences of
time and place. By the power of this communion, the Church
presents herself as a subject that is absolutely unique in human
affairs, able to take on the gifts, the merits, and the faults of
her children of yesterday and today.

The telling analogy to the mystery of the
incarnate Word implies too, nevertheless, a fundamental
difference. “Christ, ‘holy, innocent, and undefiled’ (Heb
7:26), knew no sin (cf. 2 Cor 5:21), but came only to
expiate the sins of the people (cf. Heb 2:17). The Church,
however, embracing sinners in her bosom, is at the same time holy
and always in need of purification and incessantly pursues the
path of penance and renewal.”(45) The absence of sin in the
Incarnate Word cannot be attributed to his ecclesial Body, within
which, on the contrary, each person – participating in the grace
bestowed by God – needs nevertheless to be vigilant and to be
continually purified. Each member also shares in the weakness of
others: “All members of the Church, including her ministers,
must acknowledge that they are sinners (cf. 1 Jn 1:8-10).
In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good
wheat of the Gospel until the end of time (cf. Mt
13:24-30). Hence the Church gathers sinners already caught up in
Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness.”(46)

Already Paul VI had solemnly affirmed that the
Church “is holy, though she includes sinners in her bosom, for
she herself has no other life but the life of grace... This is why
she suffers and does penance for these faults, from which she has
the power to free her children through the blood of Christ and the
gift of the Holy Spirit.”(47) The Church in her “mystery” is
thus the encounter of sanctity and of weakness, continually
redeemed, and yet always in need of the power of redemption. As
the liturgy – the true “lex credendi” – teaches,
the individual Christian and the community of the saints implore
God to look upon the faith of his church and not on the sins of
individuals, which are the negation of this living faith: “Ne
respicias peccata nostra, sed fidem Ecclesiae Tuae”! In the
unity of the mystery of the Church through time and space, it is
possible to consider the aspect of holiness, the need for
repentance and reform, and their articulation in the actions of
Mother Church.

The Church is holy because, sanctified by Christ
who has acquired her by giving himself up to death for her, she is
maintained in holiness by the Holy Spirit who pervades her
unceasingly: “We believe that the Church…is indefectibly holy.
For Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is
praised as being ‘alone holy,’ loved the Church as his bride
and gave himself up for her, so that she might be made holy (cf. Eph
5: 25), and has united her to himself as his body and has filled
her with the gift of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God. For
this reason, everyone in the Church…is called to
holiness.”(48) In this sense, from the beginning, the members of
the Church are called the “saints” (cf. Acts 9:13; 1 Cor
6:1; 16:1). One can distinguish, however, the holiness of the
Church from holiness in theChurch. The former -
founded on the missions of the Son and Spirit – guarantees the
continuity of the mission of the People of God until the end of
time and stimulates and aids the believers in pursuing subjective
personal holiness. The form which holiness takes is rooted in the
vocation that each one receives; it is given and required of him
as the full completion of his own vocation and mission. Personal
holiness is always directed toward God and others, and thus has an
essentially social character: it is holiness “in the Church”
oriented towards the good of all.

Holiness in the Church must therefore
correspond to the holiness of the Church. “The followers
of Christ, called by God not according to their works, but
according to his own purpose and grace, and justified in the Lord
Jesus, have been made truly children of God in the Baptism of
faith and sharers in the divine nature, and thus are really made
holy. They must therefore hold on to and perfect in their lives
that sanctification which they have received from God.”(49) The
baptized person is called to become with his entire existence that
which he has already become by virtue of his baptismal
consecration. And this does not happen without the consent of his
freedom and the assistance of the grace that comes from God. No
one becomes himself so fully as does the saint, who welcomes the
divine plan and, with the help of grace, conforms his entire being
to it! The saints are in this sense like lights kindled by the
Lord in the midst of his Church in order to illuminate her; they
are a prophecy for the whole world.

Without obscuring this holiness, we must
acknowledge that due to the presence of sin there is a need for
continual renewal and for constant conversion in the People of
God. The Church on earth is “marked with a true holiness,”
which is, however, “imperfect.”(50) Augustine observes against
the Pelagians: “The Church as a whole says: Forgive us our
trespasses! Therefore she has blemishes and wrinkles. But by means
of confession the wrinkles are smoothed away and the blemishes
washed clean. The Church stands in prayer in order to be purified
by confession and, as long as men live on earth it will be
so.”(51) And Thomas Aquinas makes clear that the fullness of
holiness belongs to eschatological time; in the meantime, the
Church still on pilgrimage should not deceive herself by saying
that she is without sin: “To be a glorious Church, with neither
spot nor wrinkle, is the ultimate end to which we are brought by
the Passion of Christ. Hence, this will be the case only in the
heavenly homeland, not here on the way of pilgrimage, where ‘if
we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves’...”(52) In
reality, “though we are clothed with the baptismal garment, we
do not cease to sin, to turn away from God. Now, in this new
petition [‘forgive us our trespasses’], we return to him like
the prodigal son (cf. Lk 15:11-32) and, like the tax
collector, recognize that we are sinners before him (cf. Lk
18:13). Our petition begins with a ‘confession’ of our
wretchedness and his mercy.”(53)

Hence it is the entire Church that confesses her
faith in God through the confession of her children’s sins and
celebrates his infinite goodness and capacity for forgiveness.
Thanks to the bond established by the Holy Spirit, the communion
that exists among all the baptized in time and space is such that
in this communion each person is himself, but at the same time is
conditioned by others and exercises an influence on them in the
living exchange of spiritual goods. In this way, the holiness of
each one influences the growth in goodness of others; however, sin
also does not have an exclusively individual relevance, because it
burdens and poses resistance along the way of salvation of all
and, in this sense, truly touches the Church in her entirety,
across the various times and places. This distinction prompts the
Fathers to make sharp statements like this one of Ambrose: “Let
us beware then that our fall not become a wound of the
Church.”(54) The Church therefore, “although she is holy
because of her incorporation into Christ, … does not tire of
doing penance: Before God and man, she always acknowledges as her
own her sinful sons and daughters”(55) of both yesterday and
today.

The conviction that the Church can make herself
responsible for the sin of her children by virtue of the
solidarity that exists among them through time and space because
of their incorporation into Christ and the work of the Holy
Spirit, is expressed in a particularly effective way in the idea
of “Mother Church” (“Mater Ecclesia”), which “in
the conception of the early Fathers of the Church sums up the
entire Christian aspiration.”(56) The Church, Vatican II
affirms, “by means of the Word of God faithfully received,
becomes a mother, since through preaching and baptism she brings
forth children to a new and immortal life, who have been conceived
by the Holy Spirit and born of God.”(57) Augustine, for example,
gives voice to the vast tradition, of which these ideas are an
echo: “This holy and honored mother is like Mary. She gives
birth and she is a virgin, from her you were born - she generates
Christ so that you will be members of Christ.”(58) Cyprian of
Carthage states succinctly: “One cannot have God as a father who
doesn’t have the Church as a mother.”(59) And Paulinus of Nola
sings of the motherhood of the Church like this: “As a mother
she receives the seed of the eternal Word, carries the peoples in
her womb and gives birth to them.”(60)

According to this vision, the Church is
continually realized in the exchange and communication of the
Spirit from one believer to another, as the generative environment
of faith and holiness, in fraternal communion, unanimity in
prayer, solidarity with the cross, and common witness. By virtue
of this living communication, each baptized person can be
considered to be at the same time a child of the Church, in that
he is generated in her to divine life, and Mother Church, in that,
by his faith and love he cooperates in giving birth to new
children for God. He is ever more Mother Church, the greater is
his holiness and the more ardent is his effort to communicate to
others the gift he has received. On the other hand, the baptized
person does not cease to be a child of the Church when, because of
sin, he separates himself from her in his heart. He may always
come back to the springs of grace and remove the burden that his
sin imposes on the entire community of Mother Church. The Church,
in turn, as a true Mother, cannot but be wounded by the sin of her
children of yesterday and today, continuing to love them always,
to the point of making herself responsible in all times for the
burden created by their sins. Thus, she is seen by the Fathers of
the Church to be the Mother of sorrows, not only because of
persecutions coming from outside, but above all because of the
betrayals, failures, delays, and sinfulness of her children.

Holiness and sin in the Church are
reflected therefore in their effects on the entire Church,
although it is a conviction of faith that holiness is stronger
than sin, since it is the fruit of divine grace. The saints are
shining proof of this, and are recognized as models and help for
all! There is no parallelism between grace and sin, nor even a
kind of symmetry or dialectical relationship. The influence of
evil will never be able to conquer the force of grace and the
radiance of good, even the most hidden good! In this sense the
Church recognizes herself to be holy in her saints. While she
rejoices over this holiness and knows its benefit, she nonetheless
confesses herself a sinner, not as a subject who sins, but rather
in assuming the weight of her children’s faults in maternal
solidarity, so as to cooperate in overcoming them through penance
and newness of life. For this reason, the holy Church recognizes
the duty “to express profound regret for the weaknesses of so
many of her sons and daughters who sullied her face, preventing
her from fully mirroring the image of her crucified Lord, the
supreme witness of patient love and humble meekness.”(61)

This expression of regret can be done in a
particular way by those who by charism and ministry express the
communion of the People of God in its weightiest form: on behalf
of the local Churches, Bishops may be able to make confessions for
wrongs and requests for forgiveness. For the entire Church, one in
time and space, the person capable of speaking is he who exercises
the universal ministry of unity, the Bishop of the Church “which
presides in love,”(62) the Pope. This is why it is particularly
significant that the invitation came from him that “the Church
should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her
children” and recognize the necessity “to make amends for…
[the sins of the past], and earnestly beseech Christ’s
forgiveness.”(63)

The determination of the wrongs of the past, for
which amends are to be made, implies, first of all, a correct
historical judgement, which is also the foundation of the
theological evaluation. One must ask: What precisely occurred?
What exactly was said and done? Only when these questions are
adequately answered through rigorous historical analysis can one
then ask whether what happened, what was said or done, can been
understood as consistent with the Gospel, and, if it cannot,
whether the Church’s sons and daughters who acted in such a way
could have recognised this, given the context in which they acted.
Only when there is moral certainty that what was done in
contradiction to the Gospel in the name of the Church by certain
of her sons and daughters could have been understood by them as
such and avoided, can it have significance for the Church of today
to make amends for faults of the past.

The relationship between “historical judgement”
and “theological judgement” is therefore as complex as it is
necessary and determinative. For this reason, it is necessary to
undertake it without falsehoods on one side or the other. Both an
apologetics that seeks to justify everything and an unwarranted
laying of blame, based on historically untenable attributions of
responsibility, must be avoided. John Paul II, referring to the
historical-theological evaluation of the work of the Inquisition,
stated: “The Church’s Magisterium certainly may not intend to
perform an act of natural ethics, which the request for pardon is,
without first being exactly informed concerning the situation of
that time. But, at the same time, neither may it rely on images of
the past steered by public opinion, since these are frequently
highly charged with passionate emotion which impedes serene and
objective diagnosis… This is the reason why the first step
consists in asking the historians, not to furnish a judgement of
natural ethics, which would exceed the area of their competence,
but to offer help toward a reconstruction, as precise as possible,
of the events, of the customs, of the mentality of the time, in
the light of historical context of the epoch.”(64)

What are the conditions for a correct
interpretation of the past from the point of view of historical
knowledge? To determine these, we must take account of the
complexity of the relationship between the subject who interprets
and the object from the past which is interpreted.(65) First,
their mutual extraneousness must be emphasized. Events or words of
the past are, above all, “past.” As such they are not
completely reducible to the framework of the present, but possess
an objective density and complexity that prevent them from being
ordered in a solely functional way for present interests. It is
necessary, therefore, to approach them by means of an
historical-critical investigation that aims at using all of the
information available, with a view to a reconstruction of the
environment, of the ways of thinking, of the conditions and the
living dynamic in which those events and those words are placed,
in order, in such a way, to ascertain the contents and the
challenges that - precisely in their diversity - they propose to
our present time.

Second, a certain common belonging of
interpreter and interpreted must be recognized without which no
bond and no communication could exist between past and present.
This communicative bond is based on the fact that every human
being, whether of yesterday or of today, is situated in a complex
of historical relationships, and in order to live these
relationships, the mediation of language is necessary, a mediation
which itself is always historically determined. Everybody belongs
to history! Bringing to light this communality between interpreter
and the object of interpretation – which is reached through the
multiple forms by which the past leaves evidence of itself (texts,
monuments, traditions, etc.) – means judging both the accuracy
of possible correspondences and possible difficulties of
communication between past and present, as indicated by one’s
own understanding of the past words and events. This requires
taking into account the questions which motivate the research and
their effect on the answers which are found, the living context in
which the work is undertaken, and the interpreting community whose
language is spoken and to whom one intends to speak. For this
purpose, it is necessary that the pre-understanding – which is
part of every act of interpretation – be as reflective and
conscious as possible, in order to measure and moderate its real
effect on the interpretative process.

Finally, through the effort to know and to
evaluate, an osmosis (a “fusion of horizons”) is
accomplished between the interpreter and the object of the past
that is interpreted, in which the act of comprehension properly
consists. This is the expression of what is judged to be the
correct understanding of the events or words of the past; it is
equivalent to grasping the meaning which the events can have for
the interpreter and his world. Thanks to this encounter of living
worlds, understanding of the past is translated into its
application to the present. The past is grasped in the
potentialities which it discloses, in the stimulus it offers to
modify the present. Memory becomes capable of giving rise to a new
future.

This fruitful osmosis with the past is
reached through the interwovenness of certain basic hermeneutic
operations, which correspond to the stages of extraneousness,
communality, and understanding true and proper. In relation to a
“text” of the past (understood in a general sense as evidence
which may be written, oral, monumental, or figurative), these
operations can be expressed as follows: “1) understanding the
text; 2) judging how correct one’s understanding of the text is;
and 3) stating what one judges to be the correct understanding of
the text.”(66) Understanding the evidence of the past means
reaching it as far as possible in its objectivity through all the
sources that are available. Judging the correctness of one’s own
interpretation means verifying honestly and rigorously to what
extent it could have been oriented or conditioned in any way by
one’s prior understanding or by possible prejudices. Stating the
interpretation reached means bringing others into the dialogue
created with the past, in order both to verify its importance and
to discover other possible interpretations.

If these operations are present in every
hermeneutic act, they must also be part of the interpretative
process within which historical judgement and theological
judgement come to be integrated. This requires, in the first
place, that in this type of interpretation, maximum attention be
given to the elements of differentiation and extraneousness
between past and present. In particular, when one intends to judge
the possible wrongs of the past, it must be kept in mind that the
historical periods are different, that the sociological and
cultural times within which the Church acts are different, and so,
the paradigms and judgements proper to one society and to one era
might be applied erroneously in the evaluation of other periods of
history, producing many misunderstandings. Persons, institutions,
and their respective competencies are different; ways of thinking
and conditioning are different. Therefore, responsibility for what
was said and done has to be precisely identified, taking into
account the fact that the Church’s request for forgiveness
commits the single theological subject of the Church in the
variety of ways and levels in which she is represented by
individual persons and in the enormous diversity of historical and
geographical situations. Generalization must be avoided. Any
possible statement today must be situated in the contemporary
context and undertaken by the appropriate subject (universal
Church, Bishops of a country, particular Churches, etc.).

Second, the correlation of historical judgement
and theological judgement must take into account the fact that,
for the interpretation of the faith, the bond between past and
present is not motivated only by the current interest and by the
common belonging of every human being to history and its
expressive mediations, but is based also on the unifying action of
the Spirit of God and on the permanent identity of the
constitutive principle of the communion of the faithful, which is
revelation. The Church - by virtue of the communion produced in
her by the Spirit of Christ in time and space – cannot fail to
recognize herself in her supernatural aspect, present and
operative in all times, as a subject in a certain way unique,
called to correspond to the gift of God in different forms and
situations through the choices of her children, despite all of the
deficiencies that may have characterized them. Communion in the
one Holy Spirit also establishes a communion of “saints” in a
diachronic sense, by virtue of which the baptized of today feel
connected to the baptized of yesterday and - as they benefit from
their merits and are nourished by their witness of holiness - so
likewise they feel the obligation to assume any current burden
from their faults, after having discerned these by attentive
historical and theological study.

Thanks to this objective and transcendent
foundation of the communion of the People of God in its various
historical situations, interpretation done by believers recognizes
in the Church’s past a very particular significance for the
present day. The encounter with the past, produced in the act of
interpretation, can have particular value for the present, and be
rich in a “performative” efficaciousness that cannot always be
calculated beforehand. Of course, the powerful unity between the
hermeneutic horizon and the Church as interpreting agent exposes
the theological vision to the risk of yielding to apologetic or
tendentious readings. It is here that the hermeneutic exercise
aimed at understanding past events and statements and at
evaluating the correctness of their interpretation for today is
more necessary than ever. For this reason, the reading undertaken
by believers will avail itself of all possible contributions by
the historical sciences and interpretative methods. The exercise
of historical hermeneutics should not, however, prevent the
evaluation of faith from questioning the texts according to its
own distinctive vision, thus making past and present interact in
the conscience of the one fundamental subject involved in these
texts, the Church. This guards against all historicism that would
relativize the weight of past wrongs and make history justify
everything. As John Paul II observes, “an accurate historical
judgement cannot prescind from careful study of the cultural
conditioning of the times... Yet the consideration of mitigating
factors does not exonerate the Church from the obligation to
express profound regret for the weaknesses of so many of her sons
and daughters...”(67) The Church is “not afraid of the truth
that emerges from history and is ready to acknowledge mistakes
wherever they have been identified, especially when they involve
the respect that is owed to individuals and communities. She is
inclined to mistrust generalizations that excuse or condemn
various historical periods. She entrusts the investigation of the
past to patient, honest, scholarly reconstruction, free from
confessional or ideological prejudices, regarding both the
accusations brought against her and the wrongs she has
suffered.”(68) The examples offered in the following chapter may
furnish a concrete demonstration.

In order for the Church carry out an appropriate
historical examination of conscience before God with a view to her
own interior renewal and growth in grace and holiness, it is
necessary that she recognize the “forms of counter-witness and
of scandal” that have taken place in her history, especially in
the past millennium. It is not possible to undertake such a task
without being aware of its moral and spiritual significance. This
entails defining some key terms, as well as making some necessary
ethical clarifications.

On the level of morality, the request for
forgiveness always presupposes an admission of responsibility,
precisely the responsibility for a wrong committed against others.
Usually, moral responsibility refers to the relationship
between the action and the person who does it. It establishes who
is responsible for an act, its attribution to a certain person or
persons. The responsibility may be objective or subjective.
Objective responsibility refers to the moral value of the act in
itself, insofar as it is good or evil, and thus refers to the
imputability of the action. Subjective responsibility concerns the
effective perception by individual conscience of the goodness or
evil of the act performed. Subjective responsibility ceases with
the death of the one who performed the act; it is not transmitted
through generation; the descendants do not inherit (subjective)
responsibility for the acts of their ancestors. In this sense,
asking for forgiveness presupposes a contemporaneity between those
who are hurt by an action and those who committed it. The only
responsibility capable of continuing in history can be the
objective kind, to which one may freely adhere subjectively or
not. Thus, the evil done often outlives the one who did it through
the consequences of behaviors that can become a heavy burden on
the consciences and memories of the descendants.

In such a context, one can speak of a solidarity
that unites the past and the present in a relationship of
reciprocity. In certain situations, the burden that weighs on
conscience can be so heavy as to constitute a kind of moral and
religious memory of the evil done, which is by its nature a common
memory. This common memory gives eloquent testimony to the
solidarity objectively existing between those who committed the
evil in the past and their heirs in the present. It is then that
it becomes possible to speak of an objective common
responsibility. Liberation from the weight of this
responsibility comes above all through imploring God’s
forgiveness for the wrongs of the past, and then, where
appropriate, through the “purification of memory” culminating
in a mutual pardoning of sins and offenses in the present.

Purifying the memory means eliminating from
personal and collective conscience all forms of resentment or
violence left by the inheritance of the past, on the basis of a
new and rigorous historical-theological judgement, which becomes
the foundation for a renewed moral way of acting. This occurs
whenever it becomes possible to attribute to past historical deeds
a different quality, having a new and different effect on the
present, in view of progress in reconciliation in truth, justice,
and charity among human beings and, in particular, between the
Church and the different religious, cultural, and civil
communities with whom she is related. Emblematic models of such an
effect, which a later authoritative interpretative judgement may
have for the entire life of the Church, are the reception of the
Councils or acts like the abolition of mutual anathemas. These
express a new assessment of past history, which is capable of
producing a different characterization of the relationships lived
in the present. The memory of division and opposition is purified
and substituted by a reconciled memory, to which everyone in the
Church is invited to be open and to become educated.

The combination of historical judgement and
theological judgement in the process of interpreting the past is
connected to the ethical repercussions that it may have in the
present and entails some principles corresponding, on the moral
plane, to the hermeneutic foundation of the relationship between
historical judgement and theological judgement. These are:

a. The principle of conscience. Conscience,
as “moral judgement” and as “moral imperative,”
constitutes the final evaluation of an act as good or evil before
God. In effect, only God knows the moral value of each human act,
even if the Church, like Jesus, can and must classify, judge, and
sometimes condemn some kinds of action (cf. Mt 18:15-18).

b. The principle of historicity. Precisely
inasmuch as every human act belongs to the subject who acts, every
individual conscience and every society chooses and acts within a
determined horizon of time and space. To truly understand human
acts or their related dynamics, we need therefore to enter into
the world of those who did them. Only in such a way can we come to
know their motivations and their moral principles. This must be
said without prejudice to the solidarity that binds the members of
a specific community through the passage of time.

c. The principle of “paradigm change.” While
before the Enlightenment there existed a sort of osmosis between
Church and State, between faith and culture, morality and law,
from the eighteenth century onward this relationship was modified
significantly. The result was a transition from a sacral society
to a pluralist society, or, as occurred in a few cases, to a
secular society. The models of thought and action, the so-called
“paradigms” of actions and evaluation, change. Such a
transition has a direct impact on moral judgements, although this
influence does not justify in any way a relativistic idea of moral
principles or of the nature of morality itself.

The entire process of purification of memory,
however, insofar as it requires the correct combination of
historical evaluation and theological perception, needs to be
lived by the Church’s sons and daughters not only with the rigor
that takes account of the criteria and principles indicated above,
but is also accompanied by a continual calling upon the help of
the Holy Spirit. This is necessary in order not to fall into
resentment or unwarranted self-recrimination, but to arrive
instead at the confession of the God whose “mercy is from age to
age” (Lk 1:50), who wants life and not death, forgiveness
and not condemnation, love and not fear. The quality of exemplarity
which the honest admission of past faults can exert on attitudes
within the Church and civil society should also be noted, for it
gives rise to a renewed obedience to the Truth and to respect for
the dignity and the rights of others, most especially, of the very
weak. In this sense, the numerous requests for forgiveness
formulated by John Paul II constitute an example that draws
attention to something good and stimulates the imitation of it,
recalling individuals and groups of people to an honest and
fruitful examination of conscience with a view to reconciliation.

In the light of these ethical clarifications, we
can now explore some examples – among which are those mentioned
in Tertio millennio adveniente(69) – of situations in
which the behavior of the sons and daughters of the Church seems
to have contradicted the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a significant
way.

Unity is the law of the life of the Trinitarian
God revealed to the world by the Son (cf. Jn 17:21), who,
in the power of the Holy Spirit, loving until the end (cf. Jn
13:1), communicates this life to his own. This unity should be the
source and the form of the communion of mankind’s life with the
Triune God. If Christians live this law of mutual love, so as to
be one “as the Father and the Son are one,” the result will be
that “the world will believe that the Son was sent by the
Father” (Jn 17:21) and “everyone will know that these
are his disciples” (Jn 13:35). Unfortunately, it has not
happened this way, particularly in the millennium which has just
ended and in which great divisions appeared among Christians, in
open contradiction to the explicit will of Christ, as if he
himself were divided (cf. 1 Cor 1:13). Vatican Council II
judges this fact in this way: “Certainly such division openly
contradicts the will of Christ, is a scandal to the world, and
damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every
creature.”(70)

The principal divisions during the past millennium
which “affect the seamless garment of Christ”(71) are the
schism between the Eastern and Western Churches at the beginning
of this millennium, and in the West - four centuries later - the
laceration caused by those events “commonly referred to as the
Reformation.”(72) It is true that “these various divisions
differ greatly from one another not only by reason of their
origin, place, and time, but above all by reason of the nature and
gravity of questions concerning faith and the structure of the
Church.”(73) In the schism of the eleventh century, cultural and
historical factors played an important role, while the doctrinal
dimension concerned the authority of the Church and the Bishop of
Rome, a topic which at that time had not reached the clarity it
has today, thanks to the doctrinal development of this millennium.
In the case of the Reformation, however, other areas of revelation
and doctrine were objects of controversy.

The way that has opened to overcome these
differences is that of doctrinal development animated by mutual
love. The lack of supernatural love, of agape, seems to
have been common to both the breaches. Given that this charity is
the supreme commandment of the Gospel, without which all the rest
is but “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor
13:1), such a deficiency needs to be seen in all its seriousness
before the Risen One, the Lord of the Church and of history. It is
by virtue of the recognition of this lack that Pope Paul VI asked
pardon of God and of the “separated brethren,” who may have
felt offended “by us” (the Catholic Church).(74)

In 1965, in the climate produced by the Second
Vatican Council, Patriarch Athenagoras, in his dialogue with Paul
VI, emphasized the theme of the restoration (apokatastasis)
of mutual love, so essential after a history laden with
opposition, mutual mistrust, and antagonism.(75) It was a question
of a past that, through memory, was still exerting its influence.
The events of 1965 (culminating on December 7, 1965, with the
abolition of the anathemas of 1054 between East and West)
represent a confession of the fault contained in the earlier
mutual exclusion, so as to purify the memory of the past and
generate a new one. The basis of this new memory cannot be
other than mutual love or, better, the renewed commitment to live
it. This is the commandment ante omnia (1 Pt 4:8)
for the Church in the East and in the West. In such a way, memory
frees us from the prison of the past and calls Catholics and
Orthodox, as well as Catholics and Protestants, to be the
architects of a future more in conformity with the new
commandment. Pope Paul VI’s and Patriarch Athenagoras’
testimony to this new memory is in this sense exemplary.

Particularly problematic for the path toward the
unity of Christians is the temptation to be guided – or even
determined – by cultural factors, historical conditioning, and
those prejudices which feed the separation and mutual distrust
among Christians, even though they do not have anything to do with
matters of faith. The Church’s sons and daughters should
sincerely examine their consciences to see whether they are
actively committed to obeying the imperative of unity and are
living an “interior conversion,” because “it is from newness
of attitudes of mind (cf. Eph 4:23), from self-denial and
generous love, that desires for unity take their rise and grow
toward maturity.”(76) In the period from the close of the
Council until today, resistance to its message has certainly
saddened the Spirit of God (cf. Eph 4:30). To the extent
that some Catholics are pleased to remain bound to the separations
of the past, doing nothing to remove the obstacles that impede
unity, one could justly speak of solidarity in the sin of division
(cf. 1 Cor 1:10-16). In this context the words of the
Decree on Ecumenism could be recalled: “With humble prayer we
ask pardon of God and of the separated brethren, as we forgive
those who trespass against us.”(77)

To the counter-witness of the division between
Christians should be added that of the various occasions in the
past millennium when doubtful means were employed in the pursuit
of good ends, such as the proclamation of the Gospel or the
defense of the unity of the faith. “Another sad chapter of
history to which the sons and daughters of the Church must return
with a spirit of repentance is that of the acquiescence given,
especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use
of force in the service of truth.”(78) This refers to forms of
evangelization that employed improper means to announce the
revealed truth or did not include an evangelical discernment
suited to the cultural values of peoples or did not respect the
consciences of the persons to whom the faith was presented, as
well as all forms of force used in the repression and correction
of errors.

Analogous attention should be paid to all the
failures, for which the sons and daughters of the Church may have
been responsible, to denounce injustice and violence in the great
variety of historical situations: “Then there is the lack of
discernment by many Christians in situations where basic human
rights were violated. The request for forgiveness applies to
whatever should have been done or was passed over in silence
because of weakness or bad judgement, to what was done or said
hesitantly or inappropriately.”(79)

As always, establishing the historical truth by
means of historical-critical research is decisive. Once the facts
have been established, it will be necessary to evaluate their
spiritual and moral value, as well as their objective
significance. Only thus will it be possible to avoid every form of
mythical memory and reach a fair critical memory capable - in the
light of faith - of producing fruits of conversion and renewal.
“From these painful moments of the past a lesson can be drawn
for the future, leading all Christians to adhere fully to the
sublime principle stated by the Council: ‘The truth cannot
impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it wins over
the mind with both gentleness and power.’”(80)

The relationship between Christians and Jews is
one of the areas requiring a special examination of
conscience.(81) “The Church’s relationship to the Jewish
people is unlike the one she shares with any other
religion.”(82) Nevertheless, “the history of the relations
between Jews and Christians is a tormented one... In effect, the
balance of these relations over two thousand years has been quite
negative.”(83) The hostility or diffidence of numerous
Christians toward Jews in the course of time is a sad historical
fact and is the cause of profound remorse for Christians aware of
the fact that “Jesus was a descendent of David; that the Virgin
Mary and the Apostles belonged to the Jewish people; that the
Church draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto
which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles
(cf. Rom 11:17-24); that the Jews are our dearly beloved
brothers, indeed in a certain sense they are ‘our elder
brothers.’”(84)

The Shoah was certainly the result of the pagan
ideology that was Nazism, animated by a merciless anti-Semitism
that not only despised the faith of the Jewish people, but also
denied their very human dignity. Nevertheless, “it may be asked
whether the Nazi persecution of the Jews was not made easier by
the anti-Jewish prejudices imbedded in some Christian minds and
hearts... Did Christians give every possible assistance to those
being persecuted, and in particular to the persecuted Jews?”(85)
There is no doubt that there were many Christians who risked their
lives to save and to help their Jewish neighbors. It seems,
however, also true that “alongside such courageous men and
women, the spiritual resistance and concrete action of other
Christians was not that which might have been expected from
Christ’s followers.”(86) This fact constitutes a call to the
consciences of all Christians today, so as to require “an act of
repentance (teshuva),”(87) and to be a stimulus to
increase efforts to be “transformed by renewal of your mind” (Rom
12:2), as well as to keep a “moral and religious memory” of
the injury inflicted on the Jews. In this area, much has already
been done, but this should be confirmed and deepened.

“The present age in fact, together with much
light, also presents not a few shadows.”(88) First among the
latter, we might mention the phenomenon of the denial of God in
its many forms. What is particularly apparent is that this denial,
especially in its more theoretical aspects, is a process that
emerged in the western world. Connected to the eclipse of God, one
encounters then a series of negative phenomena, like religious
indifference, the widespread lack of a transcendent sense of human
life, a climate of secularism and ethical relativism, the denial
of the right to life of the unborn child sanctioned in
pro-abortion legislation, and a great indifference to the cry of
the poor in entire sectors of the human family.

The uncomfortable question to consider is in what
measure believers are themselves responsible for these forms of
atheism, whether theoretical or practical. Gaudium et spes
responds with well-chosen words: “Believers themselves often
share some responsibility for this situation. For, taken as a
whole, atheism is not something original, but rather stems from a
variety of causes, including a critical reaction against religious
belief and in some places against the Christian religion in
particular. Hence believers can have more than a little to do with
the genesis of atheism.”(89)

The true face of God has been revealed in Jesus
Christ, and thus, Christians are offered the incommensurable grace
to know this face. At the same time, however, Christians have the responsibility
to live in such a way as to show others the true face of the
living God. They are called to radiate to the world the truth that
“God is love (agape)” (1 Jn 4:8,16). Since God
is love, he is also a Trinity of Persons, whose life consists in
their infinite mutual communication in love. It follows from this
that the best way Christians can radiate the truth that God is
love is by their own mutual love. “By this all will know that
you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn
13:35). For this reason, it can be said of Christians that often
“to the extent that they neglect their own training in the
faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or are deficient in their
religious, moral or social life, they must be said to conceal
rather than reveal the authentic face of God and of
religion.”(90)

Finally, it must be emphasized that the mentioning
of these faults of Christians of the past is not only to confess
them to Christ the Savior, but also to praise the Lord of history
for his merciful love. Christians, in fact, do not believe only in
the existence of sin, but also, and above all, in the forgiveness
of sins. In addition, recalling these faults means accepting
our solidarity with those who, in good and bad, have gone before
us on the way of truth. It offers to those of the present a
powerful reason to convert to the requirements of the Gospel, and
it provides a necessary prelude to the request for God’s
forgiveness that opens the way for mutual reconciliation.

In the light of these considerations, it is now
possible to ask the question: What are the pastoral aims of the
Church’s taking responsibility for past faults committed in her
name by her sons and daughters, and for which she makes amends?
What are its implications for the life of the People of God? And
what are the consequences in relation to the Church’s missionary
effort and her dialogue with various cultures and religions?

The following are some of the pastoral reasons for
acknowledging the faults of the past.

First, these acts tend towards the purification
of memory, which – as noted above – is a process aimed at
a new evaluation of the past, capable of having a considerable
effect on the present, because past sins frequently make their
weight felt and remain temptations in the present as well. Above
all, if the causes of possible resentment for evils suffered and
the negative influences stemming from what was done in the past
can be removed as a result of dialogue and the patient search for
mutual understanding with those who feel injured by words and
deeds of the past, such a removal may help the community of the
Church grow in holiness through reconciliation and peace in
obedience to the Truth. “Acknowledging the weaknesses of the
past,” the Pope emphasizes, “is an act of honesty and courage
which helps us to strengthen our faith, which alerts us to face
today’s temptations and challenges, and prepares us to meet
them.”(91) To that end, it is good that the remembering of
faults also includes all possible omissions, even if only some of
these are mentioned frequently today. One should not forget the
price paid by many Christians for their fidelity to the Gospel and
for their service to their neighbor in charity. (92)

A second pastoral aim, closely connected to the
first, is the promotion of the continual reform of the People
of God. “Therefore, if the influence of events or of the
times has led to deficiencies in moral conduct, in Church
discipline, or even in the way in which doctrine is expressed
(which must be carefully distinguished from the deposit of the
faith itself), these should be appropriately rectified at the
proper moment.”(93) All of the baptized are called to “examine
their fidelity to the will of Christ concerning the Church, and as
required, strenuously undertake the work of renewal and
reform.”(94) The criterion of true reform and of authentic
renewal must be fidelity to the will of God regarding his
people(95) that presupposes a sincere effort to free oneself from
all that leads away from his will, whether we are dealing with
present faults or the inheritance from the past.

A further aim can be seen to be the witness that
the Church gives to the God of mercy and to his liberating and
saving Truth, from the experience which she has had and continues
to have of him in history. There is also the service which
the Church in this way gives to humanity to help overcome current
evils. John Paul II states that “many Cardinals and Bishops
expressed the desire for a serious examination of conscience above
all on the part of the Church today. On the threshold of the new
millennium Christians need to place themselves humbly before the
Lord and examine themselves on the responsibility which they too
have for the evils of our day”(96) in order to help overcome
them in obedience to the splendor of saving Truth.

What are the implications for the life of the
Church of an ecclesial request for forgiveness? A number of
aspects can be mentioned.

It is necessary above all to take into account the
different processes of reception of acts of ecclesial
repentance, because these will vary according to religious,
cultural, political, social, and personal contexts. In this light,
one needs to consider that events or words linked to a
contextualized history do not necessarily have a universal
significance, and vice versa, that acts conditioned by a
determined theological and pastoral perspective have had powerful
consequences for the spread of the Gospel (one thinks, for
example, of the various historical models of the theology of
mission). Furthermore, there needs to be an evaluation of the
relationship between the spiritual benefits and the possible costs
of such acts, taking into account also the undue accentuation
which the media may give to certain aspects of the Church’s
statements. One should always remember the apostle Paul’s
admonition to welcome, consider, and support the “weak in
faith” with prudence and love (cf. Rom 14:1). In
particular, attention must be given to the history, the identity,
and the current situation of the Eastern Churches and those
Churches which exist in continents or countries where the
Christian presence is a minority.

It is necessary to specify the appropriate
subject called to speak about the faults of the past, whether
it be local Bishops, considered personally or collegially, or the
universal Pastor, the Bishop of Rome. In this perspective, it is
opportune to take into account - in recognizing past wrongs and
the present day subjects who could best assume responsibility for
these - the distinction between Magisterium and authority in the
Church. Not every act of authority has magisterial value, and so
behavior contrary to the Gospel by one or more persons vested with
authority does not involve per se the magisterial charism,
which is assured by the Lord to the Church’s Bishops, and
consequently does not require any Magisterial act of reparation.

It is necessary to underscore that the one
addressed by any request for forgiveness is God and that any
human recipients – above all, if these are groups of persons
either inside or outside the community of the Church – must be
identified with appropriate historical and theological
discernment, in order to undertake acts of reparation which are
indeed suitable, and also in order to give witness to them of the
good will and the love for the truth of the Church’s sons and
daughters. This will be accomplished to the extent that there is
dialogue and reciprocity between the parties, oriented toward a
possible reconciliation connected with the recognition of faults
and repentance for them. However, one should not forget that
reciprocity - at times impossible because of the religious
convictions of the dialogue partner – cannot be considered an
indispensable condition, and that the gratuity of love often
expresses itself in unilateral initiatives.

Possible gestures of reparation must be
connected to the recognition of a responsibility which has endured
through time, and may therefore assume a symbolic-prophetic
character, as well as having value for effective reconciliation
(for example, among separated Christians). It is also desirable
that in the definition of these acts there be joint research with
those who will be addressed, by listening to the legitimate
requests which they may present.

On the pedagogical level, it is important
to avoid perpetuating negative images of the other, as well as
causing unwarranted self-recrimination, by emphasising that, for
believers, taking responsibility for past wrongs is a kind of
sharing in the mystery of Christ, crucified and risen, who took
upon himself the sins of all. Such an interpretation, rooted in
Christ’s Paschal Mystery, is able in a particular way to produce
fruits of liberation, reconciliation, and joy for all those who,
with living faith, are involved in the request for forgiveness –
both the subjects and those addressed.

On the level of dialogue and mission, the
foreseeable implications of the Church’s acknowledgement of past
faults are varied.

On the level of the Church’s missionary
effort, it is important that these acts do not contribute to a
lessening of zeal for evangelization by exacerbating negative
aspects. At the same time, it should be noted that such acts can
increase the credibility of the Christian message, since they stem
from obedience to the truth and tend to produce fruits of
reconciliation. In particular, with regard to the precise topics
of such acts, those involved in the Church’s mission ad
gentes should take careful account of the local context in
proposing these, in light of the capacity of people to receive
such acts (thus, for example, aspects of the history of the Church
in Europe may well turn out to have little significance for many
non-European peoples).

With respect to ecumenism, the purpose of
ecclesial acts of repentance can be none other than the unity
desired by the Lord. Therefore, it is hoped that they will be
carried out reciprocally, though at times prophetic gestures may
call for a unilateral and absolutely gratuitous initiative.

On the inter-religious level, it is
appropriate to point out that, for believers in Christ, the
Church’s recognition of past wrongs is consistent with the
requirements of fidelity to the Gospel, and therefore constitutes
a shining witness of faith in the truth and mercy of God as
revealed by Jesus. What must be avoided is that these acts be
mistaken as confirmation of possible prejudices against
Christianity. It would also be desirable if these acts of
repentance would stimulate the members of other religions to
acknowledge the faults of their own past. Just as the history of
humanity is full of violence, genocide, violations of human rights
and the rights of peoples, exploitation of the weak and
glorification of the powerful, so too the history of the various
religions is marked by intolerance, superstition, complicity with
unjust powers, and the denial of the dignity and freedom of
conscience. Christians have been no exception and are aware that
all are sinners before God!

In the dialogue with cultures, one must,
above all, keep in mind the complexity and plurality of the
notions of repentance and forgiveness in the minds of those with
whom we dialogue. In every case, the Church’s taking
responsibility for past faults should be explained in the light of
the Gospel and of the presentation of the crucified Lord, who is
the revelation of mercy and the source of forgiveness, in addition
to explaining the nature of ecclesial communion as a unity through
time and space. In the case of a culture that is completely alien
to the idea of seeking forgiveness, the theological and spiritual
reasons which motivate such an act should be presented in
appropriate fashion, beginning with the Christian message and
taking into account its critical-prophetic character. Where one
may be dealing with a prejudicial indifference to the language of
faith, one should take into account the possible double effect of
an act of repentance by the Church: on the one hand, negative
prejudices or disdainful and hostile attitudes might be confirmed;
on the other hand, these acts share in the mysterious attraction
exercised by the “crucified God.”(97) One should also take
into account the fact that in the current cultural context, above
all of the West, the invitation to a purification of memory
involves believers and non-believers alike in a common commitment.
This common effort is itself already a positive witness of
docility to the truth.

Lastly, in relation to civil society,
consideration must be given to the difference between the Church
as a mystery of grace and every human society in time. Emphasis
must also be given, however, to the character of exemplarity of
the Church’s requests for forgiveness, as well as to the
consequent stimulus this may offer for undertaking similar steps
for purification of memory and reconciliation in other situations
where it might be urgent. John Paul II states: “The request for
forgiveness…primarily concerns the life of the Church, her
mission of proclaiming salvation, her witness to Christ, her
commitment to unity, in a word, the consistency which should
distinguish Christian life. But the light and strength of the
Gospel, by which the Church lives, also have the capacity, in a
certain sense, to overflow as illumination and support for the
decisions and actions of civil society, with full respect for
their autonomy… On the threshold of the third millennium, we may
rightly hope that political leaders and peoples, especially those
involved in tragic conflicts fuelled by hatred and the memory of
often ancient wounds, will be guided by the spirit of forgiveness
and reconciliation exemplified by the Church and will make every
effort to resolve their differences through open and honest
dialogue.”(98)

At the conclusion of this reflection, it is
appropriate to stress yet again that in every form of repentance
for the wrongs of the past, and in each specific gesture connected
with it, the Church addresses herself in the first place to God
and seeks to give glory to him and to his mercy. Precisely in this
way she is able to celebrate the dignity of the human person
called to the fullness of life in faithful covenant with the
living God: “The glory of God is man fully alive; but the life
of man is the vision of God.”(99) By such actions, the Church
also gives witness to her trust in the power of the truth that
makes us free (cf. Jn 8:32). Her “request for pardon must
not be understood as an expression of false humility or as a
denial of her 2,000-year history, which is certainly rich in merit
in the areas of charity, culture, and holiness. Instead she
responds to a necessary requirement of the truth, which, in
addition to the positive aspects, recognizes the human limitations
and weaknesses of the various generations of Christ’s
disciples.”(100) Recognition of the Truth is a source of
reconciliation and peace because, as the Holy Father also states,
“Love of the truth, sought with humility, is one of the great
values capable of reuniting the men of today through the various
cultures.”(101) Because of her responsibility to Truth, the
Church “cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without
encouraging her children to purify themselves, through repentance,
of past errors and instances of infidelity, inconsistency and
slowness to act. Acknowledging the weaknesses of the past is an
act of honesty and courage…”(102) It opens a new tomorrow for
everyone.

Notes

(1) Incarnationis mysterium, 11.

(2) Ibid. In numerous prior statements, in
particular, number 33 of the Apostolic Letter Tertio millennio
adveniente(TMA), the Pope has indicated to the Church
the path forward for purifying her memory regarding the faults of
the past and for giving an example of repentance to individuals
and civil societies.

(6) This is the sense of the definition of
indulgence given by Clement VI when in 1343 he instituted the
practice of having a Jubilee every fifty years. Clement VI sees in
the Church’s Jubilee “the spiritual accomplishment” of the
“Jubilee of remission and of joy” in the Old Testament (Lv
25).

(7) “Each of us must examine [his conscience]
with respect to what he has fallen into and examine himself even
more rigorously than God will on the day of his wrath” in Deutsche
Reichstagsakten, new series, III, 390-399 (Gotha, 1893).

(8) Unitatis redintegratio, 7.

(9) Gaudium et spes, 36.

(10) Ibid., 19.

(11) Nostra aetate, 4.

(12) Gaudium et spes, 43 §6.

(13) Lumen gentium, 8; cf. Unitatis
redintegratio, 6: “Christ summons the Church, as she goes
her pilgrim way, to that continual reform of which she always has
need, insofar as she is a human institution here on earth.”

(19) For example, the Pope, addressing himself to
the Moravians, asked “forgiveness, on behalf of all Catholics,
for the wrongs caused to non-Catholics in the course of history”
(cf. Canonization of Jan Sarkander in the Czech Republic, May 21,
1995). The Holy Father also wanted to undertake “an act of
expiation” and ask forgiveness of the Indians of Latin America
and from the Africans deported as slaves (Message to the
Indians of America, Santo Domingo, October 13, 1992, and General
Audience Discourse of October 21, 1992). Ten years earlier he
had already asked forgiveness from the Africans for the way in
which they had been treated (Discourse at Yaoundé, August
13, 1985).

(20) Cf. TMA, 33-36.

(21) Cf. ibid., 33.

(22) Ibid., 33.

(23) Cf. ibid., 36.

(24) Cf. ibid., 34.

(25) Cf. ibid., 35.

(26) This final aspect appears in TMA only
in number 33, where it is said that the Church “before God and
man” acknowledges as her own her sinful sons and daughters.

(30) On different methods of reading Sacred
Scripture, see The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,
Pontifical Biblical Commission (1993).

(31) In this series, for example, are: Dt 1:41
(the generation of the desert recognizes that it had sinned by
refusing to go forward into the promised land); Jgs
10:10,12 (in the time of the Judges the people twice say “we
have sinned” against the Lord, referring to their service of the
Baals); 1 Sm 7:6 (the people of Samuel’s time say “we
have sinned against the Lord!”); Nm 21:7 (this text is
distinctive in that here the people of the generation of Moses
admit that, in complaining about the food, they had become guilty
of “sin” because they had spoken against the Lord and against
their human guide, Moses); 1 Sm 12:19 (the Israelites of
the time of Samuel recognize that – by having asked for a king
– they have added this to “all their sins”); Ezr
10:13 (the people acknowledge in front of Ezra that they had
greatly “transgressed in this matter” [marrying foreign
women]); Ps 65:2-3; 90:8; 103:10; (107:10-11,17); Is
59:9-15; 64:5-9; Jer 8:14; 14:7; Lam 1:14, 18a, 22 (in
which Jerusalem speaks in the first person); 3:42 (4:13); Bar
4:12-13 (Zion speaks of the sins of her children which led to her
destruction); Ez 33:10; Mi 7:9 (“I”), 18-19.

(32) For example: Ex 9:27 (Pharaoh says to
Moses and Aaron: “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the
right; I and my people are guilty”); 34:9 (Moses prays
“forgive our iniquity and our sin”); Lv 16:21 (the high
priest confesses the sins of the people on the head of the
“scapegoat” on the day of atonement); Ex 32:11-13 (cf. Dt
9:26-29: Moses); 32:31 (Moses); 1 Kgs 8:33ff (cf. 2 Chr
6:22ff: Solomon prays that God will forgive the future sins of the
people); 2 Chr 28:13 (the leaders of the Israelites
acknowledge “our guilt is already great”); Ezr 10:2 (Shecaniah
says to Ezra “We have broken faith with our God, by marrying
foreign women”); Neh 1:5-11 (Nehemiah confesses the sins
committed by the people of Israel, by himself, and by the house of
his father); Est 4:17(n) (Esther confesses: “We have
sinned against you and you have delivered us into the hands of our
enemies, because we have given glory to their gods”); 2 Mc
7:18-32 (the Jewish martyrs say that they are suffering because of
“our sins” against God).

(33) Among the examples of this type of national
confession are: 2 Kgs 22:13 (cf. 2 Chr 34:21: Josiah
fears the anger of the Lord “because our fathers did not heed
the words of this book”); 2 Chr 29:6-7 (Hezekiah says
“our fathers have been unfaithful”); Ps 78:8ff (the
psalmist recounts the sins of past generations from the time of
the exodus from Egypt). Cf. also the popular saying cited in Jer
31:29 and Ez 18:2: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

(34) As in the following texts: Lv 26:40
(the exiles are called to “confess their iniquity and the
iniquity of their fathers”); Ezr 9:5b-15 (the penitential
prayer of Ezra, v. 7: “From the days of our fathers to this day
we have been deeply guilty”; cf. Neh 9:6-37); Tb 3:1-5
(in his prayer Tobit prays: “Do not punish me for my sins and
for my errors and those of my fathers” [v. 3] and continues with
the statement: “we have not kept your commandments” [v. 5]; Ps
79:8-9 (this collective lament implores God: “do not impute to
us the offenses of our fathers…deliver us and forgive us our
sins”); 106:6 (“both we and our fathers have sinned”); Jer
3:25 (“…we have sinned against the Lord our God… we and our
fathers”); Jer 14:19-22 (“We acknowledge our iniquity
and the iniquity of our fathers,” v. 20); Lam 5 (“Our
fathers sinned and they are no more, and we bear the penalty for
their iniquities” [v. 7] – “woe to us for we have sinned”
[v. 16b]; Bar 1:15 – 3:18 (“we have sinned against the
Lord” [1:17, cf. 1:19, 21; 2:5,24] – “Remember not the
iniquities of our fathers” [3:5, cf. 2:33; 3:4,7]); Dn
3:26-45 (the prayer of Azariah: “With truth and justice you have
inflicted all this because of our sins”: v. 28); Dn
9:4-19 (“on account of our sins and the iniquity of our fathers,
Jerusalem […has] become the reproach…,” v. 16).

(35) These include failing to trust God (for
example; Dt 1:41; Nm 14:10), idolatry (as in Jgs
10:10-15), requesting a human king (1 Sm 12:9), marrying
foreign women contrary to the law of God (Ezr 9-10). In Is
59:13b the people say of themselves that they are guilty of
“talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and
uttering them from the heart”.

(36) Cf. the analogous case of the repudiation of
foreign wives described in Ezr 9-10, with all the negative
consequences which this would have had for these women. The
question of a request for forgiveness addressed to them (and/or to
their descendents) is not treated, since their repudiation is
presented as a requirement of God’s law (cf. Dt 7:3) in
all these chapters.

(37) In this context, the case of the permanently
strained relationship between Israel and Edom comes to mind. The
Edomites as a people – despite the fact that they were
Israel’s “brother” – participated and rejoiced in the
conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (cf., for example, Ob
10-14). Israel, as a sign of outrage for this betrayal, felt no
need to ask forgiveness for the killing of defenseless Edomite
prisoners of war by King Amaziah as recounted in 2 Chr
25:12.

(38) John Paul II, General Audience Discourse
of September 1, 1999; in L’Osservatore Romano, eng. ed.,
September 8, 1999, 7.

(39) Cf. TMA, 33-36.

(40) TMA, 33.

(41) One thinks of the reason why Christian
authors of various historical periods reproached the Church for
her faults. Among these, one of the most representative examples
is the Liber asceticus by Maximus the Confessor: PL
90, 912-956.

(54) St. Ambrose, De virginitate 8,48; PL
16,278D: “Caveamus igitur, ne lapsus noster vulnus Ecclesiae
fiat.”Lumen gentium 11 also speaks of the wound
inflicted on the Church by the sins of her children.

(64) Discourse to the participants in the
International Symposium of study on the Inquisition, sponsored by
the Historical-Theological Commission of the Central Committee of
the Jubilee, n. 4; October 31, 1998.

(68) John Paul II, General Audience Discourse
of September 1, 1999; in L’Osservatore Romano, Eng. ed.,
September 8, 1999, 7.

(69) Cf. TMA, 34-36.

(70) Unitatis redintegratio, 1.

(71) Ibid., 13. TMA 34 states that
“In the course of the thousand years now drawing to a close,
even more than in the first millenium, ecclesial communion has
been painfully wounded…”

(72) Unitatis redintegratio, 13.

(73) Ibid.

(74) Cf. Opening Speech of the Second
Session of the Second Vatican Council (September 29, 1964): Enchiridion
Vaticanum 1, [106], n. 176.

(75) Cf. the documentation from the dialogue of
charity between the Holy See and the Ecumenical Patriarch of
Constantinople in Tómos Agápes: Vatican – Phanar
(1958-1970), (Rome – Istanbul, 1971).

(76) Unitatis redintegratio, 7.

(77) Ibid.

(78) TMA, 35.

(79) John Paul II, General Audience Discourse
of September 1, 1999; in L’Osservatore Romano, Eng. ed.,
September 8, 1999, 7.

(80) TMA, 35. The citation from the Second
Vatican Council is from Dignitatis humanae, 1.

(81) The argument is rigorously treated in the
Declaration of the Second Vatican Council, Nostra aetate.

(82) Commission for Religious Relations with the
Jews, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, Rome (March
16, 1998), I, in Information Service of the Pontifical
Council for Promoting Christian Unity, n. 97, 19. Cf. John Paul
II, Discourse at the Synagogue of Rome, April 13, 1986; AAS
78 (1986), 1120.

(83) This is the judgement of the recent document
of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, We
Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, Rome (March 16, 1998),
III, in Information Service of the Pontifical Council for
Promoting Christian Unity, n. 97, 19.

(84) Ibid., V, 22.

(85) Ibid., IV, 20, 21.

(86) Ibid., IV, 21.

(87) Ibid., V, 22.

(88) TMA, 36.

(89) Gaudium et spes, 19.

(90) Ibid.

(91) TMA, 33.

(92) One need only think of the sign of martyrdom:
cf. TMA, 37.

(93) Unitatis redintegratio, 6. It is the
same text which states that “Christ summons the Church, as she
goes her pilgrim way, to that continual reform (ad hanc
perennem reformationem) of which she always has need, insofar
as she is a human institution here on earth.”

(94) “…opus renovationis nec non
reformationis…”: ibid., 4.

(95) Ibid., 6: “Every renewal of the
Church consists essentially in the increase of faithfulness to her
vocation.”

(98) John Paul II, Discourse to the
participants in the International Symposium of study on the
Inquisition, sponsored by the Historical-Theological Commission of
the Central Committee of the Jubilee, n. 5; October 31, 1998.